Stacie Sherman

This is about the ugliness of anger and denial, and the beauty of acceptance.

It’s about anger at the world, at a diagnosis, at a person.

I spent so many years so angry about my mother’s death. Decades. I wouldn’t, couldn’t talk about it. I did things I shouldn’t have, and each time I blamed it on her. If she was here she would have stopped me. If she was here I would have had someone to talk to. If she was here I wouldn’t be so angry.

Blaming her was the easiest way for me to cope. It was her fault, not mine. Her death when I was 14 was the reason I didn’t make many friends at college, the reason I distanced myself from people, the reason I got into trouble, the reason my first marriage imploded, even the reason my kids had developmental disorders. If she were there, things would have been different. 

Deep down, in a place I rarely let myself go, I knew it wasn’t her fault. I knew that as long as I continued to blame her for everything bad, I would never learn, never grow, and never ever heal.

It took my 42nd birthday to face that demon. That birthday was the same age my mother was when she died. It took that long – 28 years – for me to let the anger go. Not just anger at my mother’s death. Anger at everything.

I was holding my breath through life, waiting to die. But after my 42nd birthday something changed. I wanted to live. I had so much to live for.

It was like a dark, heavy cloud lifted off me, and I saw the world for the first time. I know that sounds corny, it is corny, but it’s somehow true. In my heart, in my soul, I became nothing like the person I was 10, 20 years ago.

My anger has dissipated. I’m not talking about the small anger at stupid things like a messy kid’s room, a bad driver, a missed deadline, a cranky daughter, a stupid argument. Shit happens and as quick as it happens it’s gone. 

I’m talking about the bigger anger that consumed me, like a large growth in the center of my gut. That growth has shrunk. Now, I rarely feel anger when I think about my mom. I feel nostalgic, I feel melancholic. Sometimes sad. But not angry.

The strangest thing is, as the anger went away, I began to feel and see her everywhere. Not as the cause of all my misery but as the guidance on my shoulder.

I have never been a religious person. I know the history of my religion and I believe in its power to bring people and families close and closer. Traditions and memories are important and I want to make them and share them with my children.

Years ago, my son started pointing out yellow butterflies he saw. Those are Grandma Belle, he said. I think he saw something in a movie that made him think of that. Ever since, whenever we see a yellow butterfly, we say hi to her. For him it is something to grasp onto. He never met his Grandma Belle, but whenever he sees a yellow butterfly he thinks of her, and that makes me smile in a teary, beautiful way.

As I was online shopping for the holidays, I clicked aimlessly for gift ideas and an image of a big golden butterfly appeared on my screen. It was a wall hanging,  not everyone’s taste, but it made me think of my mom. I got one for myself and one for each of my aunts (my mother’s sisters). I hung mine on the wall near the kitchen, it is the first thing I see when I walk into the house from the garage. I asked my aunts to do with them what they wanted, but to keep them, even if in a drawer.

But it’s not only the butterfly thing. We see Belle (or Bella) everywhere. My husband and I traveled to California recently and we literally saw signs of Belle everywhere. We walked down a street and would see a restaurant or a store named Belle. It’s like she was with me, knowing that I was worried about leaving the kids back home, and letting me know not to worry, she had an eye on me and on them.

A couple of weeks ago I was running around, trying to get a ton of pre-holiday stuff done and stressing over whether my daughter would enjoy herself at the family gatherings that mean so much to me. I was in a shopping mall and was handed a perfume sample. I just threw it in my purse. Later when I got home, I found it, and the perfume was named La vie est belle. Life is Beautiful.

That same night, I was going through the junk mail and a small piece of paper dropped out of the pile onto my feet. It was an ad from a store – not the store I had been in earlier – and it was of the same perfume.

Guess what perfume I now wear? (Thank you to my love).

I am in Florida the past week, on a mini-vacation with my husband. We need this. We love to aimlessly walk around new places, see the sights, eat and drink a lot. When we got to our destination, the first restaurant we saw? Bella Mozzarella.

I don’t think my mom is suddenly creating restaurants in her name from wherever she is. I’m not that nuts.  The signs were always there, I just wasn’t looking for them.

Ten, twenty years ago, I probably would have never noticed them.

Now they are everywhere.

She is everywhere.